You are.
I’m only in act 4 or so, but so far, I’m a becoming ambivalent on the depth available in the deck building.
- The bosses are HP sinks, and as such, limit your options (high-risk, high damage builds aren’t very feasible, survivability / healing is necessary). There are abilities that I’m hard pressed to think of a way they would ever be useful.
- It may be possible to use different approaches, but bosses in particular seem to suggest an optimal approach via hard-counters.
- Some basic deck-building rules apply. Flinch seems over-powered so far, as it gives complete acton denial on your opponents. Card draw is good. In Hearthstone deck-building, there’s a rule of thumb that “if I don’t want 2 copies of a card in my hand, I don’t want 2 copies in my deck” this is even more true here with quick deck cycling.
- Combos are obviously there to counter reliance on Chain attacks, but Combos never seem as good as chain attacks, which seem to have a free 1.5 card value for 0 cost.
- Playing optimally would mean customizing your deck for every battle, but that interface tax on that is high. Maybe later (or on higher difficulty) it’s necessary, but it seems kind of not-fun.
- AoE / multi target things seem generally bad, because a lot of the time you’re either facing a single enemy or trying to focus-fire.
There’s lots of room for player expression if you want it, but I think there’s relatively little in the game (so far) that makes you want to engage in that system. And since I have to pay for card upgrades as I go, I’m kind of punished for experimenting.
It feels like they maybe tried to make all combinations of characters / styles viable, and so watered down the challenge a bit too much as a result. The only time I’ve died was on a boss I was wrongly specced for, and I solved that and won on the next try. Maybe I should just be playing on hard.
Hard is specifically designed for gamers that know card games, such as Hearthstone players, so yes you for sure should be.
I’m in Act 4 also and am having the same experience. Luckily, I came in looking for a sort of low-key JRPG style mental engagement to counter-act some crazy stuff happening in life. It’s really perfect for that, and I think was designed with that sort of goal in mind. My life is back to normal and I’m finding it less engaging now, but I think I’ll pick it back up when I want some simple relaxation. Like most JRPGs, I think it fits in that spot when I’m in the mood to rewatch Star Trek TNG or The Office. It’s exciting and a requires a bit of engagement, but I don’t think it’s trying to compete with more involved games.
Is anyone here playing on hard difficulty? Might it change your opinions one way or the other if you were?
I’m the exact same way, I can’t even browse my phone and watch TV yet my wife can just sit there gaming on her phone all while the tv is going on the whole time and not miss too much. Granted it’s Candy Crush or Tsum Tsum or something mindless like that.
I completely agree. Any time I read about people gaming and watching simultaneously it sends me into a conniption fit.
I DO NOT APPROVE
After blitzing through the Coliseum like it was nothing I deleted my save and started over on the hardest difficulty.
No you aren’t the only one. I don’t get watching TV and doing something else, or gaming and doing something else, etc. Same reason really. Why do something that doesn’t capture my attention in the first place?
Diego
I have been repeatedly told that I was unable to eat and listen to my wife at the same time.
I’m guessing the only reason you know you were told this is because you were told between meals.
Bumped the difficulty up to hard. I’m not sure what the differences are, I haven’t noticed much of a difference, but I’ve only run a couple of battles.
No, you’re just among others of your kind. Like me!
The Colosseum on hard is a decent challenge.
It has the problem with any endurance gauntlet format, which is that it rewards builds that allow you to draw out the end of battles so that you can fully heal yourself before killing the last guy so that you go into the next battle at full strength. Also, its possible to get bad draws on the last match and lose, but if you’ve managed your health properly, there’s no actual extra challenge to that last round, it’s basically equivalent to running each round individually. Instead, there’s just the tedium of playing the first rounds over again.
I haven’t played Slay the Spire yet, since I’ve been waiting for it to be portable (i.e. on Switch). Maybe that will scratch the itch a bit better for me.
The later fights have you permanently poisoned and then that tactic doesn’t work. It gets pretty challenging but the rewards are amazing.
Yup, that’s-a-me too.
I don’t believe humans in general are able to split their focus like you guys are describing - the human brain isn’t really very good at multi-tasking, so it’s not a surprise everyone is shocked they are like everyone else in that they can’t play a game and watch TV at the same time.
Rather, when I say I like to play a game like Steamworld Quest while watching Netflix or something, and I do this frequently, it’s just that I like having something else on in the background to listen to other than the repeating video game music. Sometimes I’ll pick up on something happening on the show I want to focus on and stop playing, other times something in the game (usually something that requires reading) that makes me pause the show. I’m not fully engaged with either, it’s usually a 45%/45% focus with 10% lost to both.
Well then how about a podcast! Listening to something while gaming makes sense but Netflix is supposed to be for your eyeballs. (I suppose stand-up comedy specials would fit the bill.) And at least this game is turn-based so you can pretty easily glance up and down. This is far less offensive to my tender sensibilities than playing an action game while “watching” something in the background.
We also need to acknowledge that there are some folks who turn the TV on and just leave it on all the time.
ABHORRENT BEHAVIOR
No, definitely not podcasts unless you really don’t care about them or the game is totally mindless. TV is better because your eyes and ears can both be used independently to determine context when you’re going in and out of attention. If I am ONLY listening to something and I switch attention to game, it is harder to get back into what was happening on the podcast without any visual cues. But of course there are certain types of podcasts that are probably better than others.
I don’t love trying to focus on two things at once, but there are surely times that warrant it especially with the portability of the Switch. Watching a sports game with lots of breaks in play or less interesting stretches. Also shows that have commercials and/or if I don’t care that much about what’s going on.
Alternating your attention back and forth between a game and the TV is TOTALLY ALLOWED as long as attention is sustained for one minute or longer every time you switch. I don’t make the rules, I just report 'em.
I think this boils down to what kinds of shows you watch. I never watch anything that doesn’t need my complete attention but I’m well aware that there’s tons of programming that doesn’t require that kind of fully-present viewing. Any reality show, game show, cooking show, sports, news… hell, I never watch anything with commercials so I wouldn’t even have that option.
On topic: I want this game!